Chinese Surnames and Ranking
Results appear here once you enter something
Results appear here once you enter something
How to Use
📖 About This Tool
Why do the surnames run in that order? Where does your own surname come from, and who bore it in history? These questions come up in class, when compiling a family record, or when explaining a name to a child. This tool puts ranking, origin and notable bearers together, so one lookup tells the whole story.
Three ways to read it. Lookup takes one or several surnames and returns for each the national rank, the origin and notable figures. Ranking lists the largest surnames by population, switchable between the top ten, twenty, fifty or hundred, with origin and figures as columns, ready for a handout or a lesson. The full list lays out every surname in the traditional Hundred Family Surnames so it can be read straight through.
The origin gives the earliest traceable source. The surname Wang, for instance, descends from the Ji line, from Prince Jin son of King Ling of Zhou, and the principal historical commanderies are named too. Two of the most representative historical figures are listed for illustration. Ranking follows the usual population figures: the higher, the more people.
The side panel shows how many surnames are ranked and how many appear in the full list, with ten of the commonest available at a click. Both the ranking and the lookup results export to CSV. Everything runs locally.
Browse by dynasty when you want the shape of a period, by author when you are following one poet, by theme when you need a poem for an occasion, and by grade when it has to match what a class is studying. Full text search covers titles, lines and authors, so half a remembered line is enough to find the poem.
Each entry carries the original text, a plain modern rendering, and a short note on what the poem is doing, which is the part most collections leave out and the part that makes a poem usable in a lesson or a toast. The collection leans on pieces that appear in textbooks and in common reference: Tang and Song lyric and verse, a spread of well known authors, and the handful of poems that everybody quotes. Coverage is deliberately canonical rather than exhaustive, so a minor or very long work is likely to be absent. Text is stored locally with the page.
✨ Features
- Lookup: rank, origin and notable figures, several surnames at once.
- Ranking: switch between top 10, 20, 50 and 100, with origin and figures.
- Full list: the traditional Hundred Family Surnames on one screen.
- Traceable origins: earliest source and principal commanderies named.
- Quick list: ten of the commonest surnames at a click.
- CSV export: both ranking and lookup results.
🚀 How to Use
- Choose lookup, ranking or the full list.
- In lookup, type one or several surnames and press Enter.
- In ranking, pick how many to show; the table updates at once.
- Use the quick list for the commonest surnames.
- Export CSV when you want to keep it.
⚠️ Notes
- Ranking basis: usual population figures; sources and years differ slightly.
- Origins: the main line is given; many surnames have branches not listed here.
- Coverage: the ranking covers the largest hundred; very rare surnames may be missing.
- Compound surnames: shown separately from single character ones.
- Nothing is saved: refreshing clears the results, so export in time.